I was always obsessed with art classes. I think art is the very best thing human-beings are capable of achieving. Art is more of a reflection of myself, and dark is the place where I can think lonely. Darkroom photography, a combination of art and dark, therefore became a “meditation” class for me.
I did multiple projects with the camera, which was usually my roommate Francis’s work. I tried to look at the world in a way I never tried before. Everything in balck and white, everything so solemn and art like. It is different from theater, of course, and psychology.
When I was in the darkroom and produced my picture, it’s like nursing a child. I realized how hard it is to do something in the dark, and how I can think clearly when all my senses are largely deprived. I thought a lot in that room. I was thinking about how human-beings start from the very beginning, with no fire, no shelter and sleeping every dark night on their own. It also reminds me of the deprivation of the dark in the modern age. People live in light for most of their days, and they overly focus on social life than anything else. People become “social animals”. I further thinked of light pollution, of how much time we’ve been on phone rather than on nature. I am confused. In photography, cellphones are not beautiful, nature is beautiful. If art is the representation of “beautiful”, why do people keep choosing the other way?
I found a lot of things so much more fun under my camera. The squirrels, the wind, the horse poop, the sunrise; they are all better companions than a phone. So I go out more and love nature more than I ever have. I realize I am in the middle of society, and I was a social animal already, but I can choose to live the way I want. I won’t give up my interest in psychology and social science, but I will experience nature more to improve my mental health.
Year taken: 2021